Saint Rita figure

As a young woman, Margherita Lotti wanted to join the Augustinian nuns, but was married against her will. Only after her violent husband was murdered and her two sons died of the plague was she able, following her original wish, to enter the Augustinian convent in Cascia in 1407, where she led a life of the strictest renunciation and penance. She later received the crown of thorns as a stigma.

Rita's uncorrupted body rests in the Basilica di Santa Rita in Cascia. Her iconographic attributes are the crucifix as an attribute of the devotee, the crown of thorns or stigmata on the forehead, and the rose as an attribute of virginity. Rita von Cascia is considered the patron saint of butchers and is invoked in hopeless matters, when exams are needed and against smallpox.

Stable polyresin figure, 15 cm high.